Thread: Religion, Slavery, Poverty and the Stockholm Syndrome Effect:

I'll start out posting that I feel as though most of what Christianity is; would be the result of a large scale Stockholm Syndrome.. It's most obviously clear in the more recent events of the 1700 - 1900 but I believe it's also why those of European ancestry were eventually converted by coercion and lack of choice at some point in our violent histories.


I'll start by posing as what I believe is the most easily visible and recent widespread use of the Stockholm Syndrome and it's spreading of religious thought.

Why has African-American communities continued it's embrace of Christianity when their ancestors were forced by Christians to come to this country and toil in servitude and forced away from their families and not allowed to practice their spiritual foundations from before slave trade?

Is it a case of.. large scale Stockholm Syndrome ? Or was the original cases Stockholm Syndrome and than when it's continually passed down through the ages; what has it become?

Would love to see African-Americans and Americans descended from Europe for that matter embrace their spiritual and ancestral pasts as more than just what was likely forced on one of your ancestors at some point in the past.

Thoughts.

Those we refer to as African-Americans today as you should all know had ancestors who were abducted from their countries either due to local war chiefs or whites slave-ships raiding islands/mainlands and grabbing those who couldn't get away. They were than forced across the oceans and set up in towns like any other piece of merchandise for sale; separating families and creating I believe the same problems African-American communities face in the 21st century; lack of education, lack of a proper father figure in many families, poverty. These issues were undoubtedly created for these people in the last 300 years since Europe and America's involvement in these peoples lives. And these issues continue to persist in modern time; along the way they were forced to adapt to White Christians wills or face death, their personal faiths and beliefs were lost along with their power to make their own life decisions. Yet to this day; African-Americans are some of the most ardent supporters of Christianity albeit their versions of Church have clear instances of lingering African pride instilled by their grandmothers grandmothers.. When will public consciousness realize that we may have removed the physical shackles but the mental and spiritual shackles are still lingering on our society?\



(Side fact: the terminology still being used by African-Americans; the calling each other brothers and sisters come from the fact that slave plantations had to form communities not based on blood but by who they were moved in with.. Wide-scale family separation led to parents teaching their children young to refer to all older slaves as Aunts and Uncles and all younger children as brother and sister.. because everyone in a community had to raise those young children because a stable familial relationship was never assured.)

This is an evolving theory; please share your opinions.

Originally Posted by Hucks Raft A History Of American Childhood Steven Mintz

A defining element of slave childhood was a tug-of-war between the
child's parents and the master and his family for the child's affection and
obedience. Slave owners frequently intruded on parental prerogatives in
an attempt to produce a loyal, diligent, obedient, and even grateful labor
force. Showing kindness to slave children played a critical role in sustain-ing the masters' conception of themselves as benevolent, paternalistic,
truly Christian beings. Slave owners thought of themselves as kind and
even munificent, citing such examples as giving slave children candy, extra
rations, and presents at Christmas time. Many plantation mistresses took
special pride in nursing slave children during illnesses. Masters tried to
win children's affection with food and privileges that parents could not
give. It was difficult for slave children to resist these attentions and not re-spond by being grateful.
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